Legislative Hearing on H.R. 862 - United States. Congress. House

Foreword
Table of Contents
Introduction
	Skills transform lives and drive economies
		Figure I.1 • Foundation skills and economic disadvantage
		Figure I.2 • Foundation skills and social disadvantage
		Box I.1 Towards a direct measure of skills as a basis of effective skills policy making
	The OECD Skills Strategy outlines a systematic and comprehensive approach to skills policies
		Figure I.3 • The OECD Skills Strategy framework
	Notes
	References and further reading
Policy Lever 1: Developing Relevant Skills
	Key policy lessons on developing relevant skills
	Box 1.1 Demographic shifts between 1960 and 2010
	How can countries improve the quality and quantity of relevant skills?
	Countries can encourage and enable people to learn throughout their lives
		Figure 1.1 • Change in employment structure
		Gather and use intelligence on the demand for skills
			Box 1.2 Methods of forecasting skills needs
			Figure 1.2 • Share of employers reporting recruitment difficulties and unemployment rates
			Box 1.3 A co-ordinated approach to addressing skills supply and demand in Queensland, Australia
		Design efficient and effective education and training systems
			Box 1.4 Responding to emerging skills needs in low-carbon economies
			Box 1.5 Lessons from the OECD’s work on local skills strategies
			Box 1.6 Redesigning curricula for the 21st century
			Box 1.7 Different forms of workplace learning
			Figure 1.3 • Young people in their mid-20s who are in education and work have higher average levels of foundation skills (country average)
			Box 1.8 The Mayor’s Apprenticeship Campaign in London
			Box 1.9 The design of tax systems influences investment in skills development
			Figure 1.4 • Public vs. private investment for a man in university-level educationor the vocational equivalent (2007 or latest available year)
			Box 1.10 Funding instruments: Types and country examples
			Box 1.11 F unding structures with a system-wide perspective
		Remove barriers to investing in further learning
			Figure 1.5 • Expected number of years of work-related formal and non-formal education and training over a working life
			Table 1.1 Main obstacles to participating in adult education and training
			Box 1.12 Open Educational Resources (OER)
			Figure 1.6 • Rates of participation in formal and non-formal education and training
			Box 1.13 Australian accredited-training initiative
			Box 1.14 Encouraging training in SMEs
			Figure 1.7 • Changes in the reading skills of 15-year-old students between 2000 and 2009, as measured by PISA
		Raise the quality of education
			Box 1.15 The relationship between education and economic growth
			Box 1.16 Rise in enrolments and improving quality in Brazil
			Box 1.17 Innovative learning environments
			Box 1.18 Promoting quality in adult learning: The Austrian quality seal
			Figure 1.8 • Projected participation in education among 20-24-year-old Africans
			Box 1.19 Morocco’s Human Development Programme
		Promote equity in educational opportunities
			Figure 1.9 • High-performing education systems combine equity with quality (PISA 2009)
			Box 1.20 Gathering information to identify and track students at risk
			Box 1.21 S upporting disadvantaged schools
			Figure 1.10 • Percentage of “population at risk” among children without an immigrant background and young immigrants, aged 20-29, by gender, 2007
			Box 1.22 Denmark’s “We Need All Youngsters” and “Retention Caravan”
			Box 1.23 Second-chance options for low-skilled adults
	Countries can enable skilled people to enter their territory
		Facilitate easy entrance for skilled migrants
			Box 1.24 Aid focused on gender equality in education
			Box 1.25 Bolsa Escola – A successful support programme for disadvantaged families in Brazil
			Box 1.26 Unleash the potential of the children of immigrants
		Encourage international students to remain after their studies
		Facilitate return migration
			Box 1.27 How countries retain international students after study
	Countries can establish effective cross-border skills policies
		Facilitate knowledge transfer and cross-border education
			Box 1.28 Training foreign workers
		Invest in skills development abroad
			Box 1.29 Swiss-Indian vocational education and training initiative
			Table 1.2 [1/2]Developing relevant skills: Key questions, indicators and resources
			Table 1.2 [2/2]Developing relevant skills: Key questions, indicators and resources
	Notes
	References and further reading
Policy Lever 2: Activating Skills Supply
	Key policy lessons on activating skills
	How can countries encourage people to supply their skills to the labour market?
	Countries can encourage inactive people to participate in the labour market
		Figure 2.1 • Unused skills may be more likely to atrophy
		Identify inactive individuals and the reasons for inactivity
			Figure 2.2 • Labour-force participation among adults, 19901 and 2010
		Offer financial incentives to make work pay
			Box 2.1 In-work benefits policies
		Overcome non-financial barriers to labour-force participation
			Figure 2.3 • Reasons for working part-time or being inactive
			Box 2.2 E mployment conditions that facilitate participation in the labour market
		Combine activation policies with opportunities for retraining or up-skilling
			Box 2.3 P olicy advice from the OECD’s Jobs for Youth study
			Box 2.4 Labour-force participation among women in MENA countries
	Countries can retain skilled people
		Discourage early retirement
			Figure 2.4 • Labour-force participation among older workers, 1990 and 2010
			Box 2.5 Features of pensions systems that reduce incentives to work
		Staunch brain drain
			Table 2.1 Emigration rates by region of origin and by skills level, population aged 15 and over, 2000 and 2005-06
			Box 2.6 S taunching brain drain: Retaining vs. restricting
			Table 2.2Activating skills supply: Key questions, indicators and resources
	Notes
	References and further reading
Policy Lever 3: Putting Skills to Effective Use
	Key policy lessons on putting skills to effective use
	How can countries make the best use of their talent pool?
	Countries can help individuals to make the best use of their skills
		Support employers in making better use of their employees’ skills
			Box 3.1 A lternative measures of skills mismatch on the job
			Figure 3.1 • The incidence of skills mismatch
			Figure 3.2 •The link between skill mismatch and earnings
		Enhance the use of skills through better management and innovation
			Box 3.2 Innovative workplaces
		Tackle unemployment and help young people to gain a foothold in the labour market
			Box 3.3 P olicy advice to tackle unemployment
			Figure 3.3 • Youth unemployment in OECD countries, 2010
			Box 3.4 Improving the transition from school to work: Examples of good practice
			Figure 3.4 • Unemployment rate by level of education in selected African and European countries
			Box 3.5 The outlook for Africa
		Improve transparency and information
			Box 3.6 Tackling under-use of immigrants’ skills
			Box 3.7 D isseminating information on skills needs
			Box 3.8 S ectoral strategy approaches in Maryland and Pennsylvania, United States
			Box 3.9 B arcelona Activa’s Porta22 web portal: Supporting a better match of skills to local employers’ demands
			Box 3.10 Internationally comparable skills indicators for low-income countries
		Facilitate mobility among local labour markets
			Box 3.11 Joint European skills instruments
	Countries can increase the demand for (high-level) skills
		Box 3.12 S haping demand in the United Kingdom
		Support the creation of more high-level skill and high value-added jobs
			Box 3.13 S ilicon Valley: The creation of a high-skills ecosystem
		Help (local) economies move production up the value chain
			Box 3.14 “Better, not cheaper”
			Box 3.15 Moving towards new product-market strategies in the food-processing sector, Niagara in Canada
			Box 3.16 A joined-up strategy to move to higher value-added production in the Riviera del Brenta, Italy
		Foster entrepreneurship
			Box 3.17 Skills for entrepreneurship
			Box 3.18 Selected entrepreneurship programmes
			Table 3.1 Putting skills to effective use: Key questions, indicators and resources
	Notes
	References and further reading
The Way Forward
	Enhancing the evidence base to help design effective skills policies
		Box 4.1 The analytical potential of the OECD Survey of Adult Skills
	Supporting the development and implementation of national skills strategies
		Box 4.2 Specialised agencies for co-ordinating national skills policies
		Box 4.3 L inking EU lifelong learning policies with the OECD Skills Strategy: Romania
	Note
	References and further reading